Kushiel's Dart

at... other things."
    I don't know what I said to that; something flattering, you may be sure. If I added a touch of defiant spice sometimes, for the most part, I told him what he wished to hear. But so it came to pass that I rode with him and two of his White Brethren to the home of Lodur the One-Eyed, on a shaggy pony Selig had given me as my own to ride.
    My first glimpse of the healer was of a wiry old man standing bare-chested in the snow, a fur vest over his scrawny torso. His hair was white and wild. He held a carved staff in one hand, and on the other fist, a raven perched. We saw him at a distance speaking to it, but it flew away at our approach. I thought it was Skaldi magic at the time. Later I learned he'd nursed it broken-winged, and it was still half tame. Lodur gJanced up, unsurprised, and I saw that he bore a patch over his right eye; I hadn't know, then, that he was called One-Eyed.
    "Waldemar Berundson," he said calmly, using a patronymic I'd never even heard spoken. Selig, they called him, Blessed, as if the gods themselves had named him.
    "This is Faydra no Delaunay of Terre d'Ange, old master," Selig said respectfully. He dismounted and bent his head to the old man, so I did the same, and noticed that his thanes did too. "She has a companion who has the cold-wounds, that will not heal."
    "Indeed." Lodur came to meet us across the snow, moving with a quickness that belied his age. His one eye was a pale, fierce blue, but it did not look unkindly on me. Unlike every other Skaldi male I'd seen, he was beardless, a grizzled white stubble on his leather-tanned face. "You like it, eh?" He saw me looking and stroked his chin, grinning. "I met a girl once who fancied a clean face. Got into the habit, I suppose."
    Priests aplenty I have known, but never one like him; I stammered some reply. "No matter," he said casually, and felt me all over with firm hands, an impersonal patting. I stood still for it, bewildered. Selig looked approving. "D'Angeline, eh?" Lodur fixed me with his solitary ice-blue gaze, gazing thoughtfully at my face and my own mismatched eyes. The cold didn't seem to touch him. "What do they call it, that?" He nodded at my left eye.
    "Kushiel's Dart," I said softly.
    "You're god-marked, then. Like me, you think?" He laughed, pointing to his patch. "One-Eyed, they call me, like the All-Father. Do you know the story?"
    I knew it; I'd heard it sung at Gunter's steading often enough. I could even sing it myself. "He gave his eye in exchange for a drink from Mimir's fountain," I said. "The fountain of wisdom."
    Lodur clapped, tucking his staff beneath one arm. Selig's thanes muttered. "Me, now," the old priest said conversationally. "When I was a fool apprentice, I took my own eye, offered it with prayer, reckoning to become wise like Odhinn. You know what my master told me?" I shook my head. Lodur cocked his and gazed at me. "He told me I had gained a valuable piece of wisdom: No one can bribe the gods. What an idiot I was!" He chuckled at the memory. Only a Skaldi could laugh at such a thing. "But I got wiser," he added.
    "Old master . .." Selig began.
    "I know, I know." Lodur cut him off. "The cold-wounds. And you want to know what I think of the girl. What can I tell you, Waldemar Berundson? You take a weapon thrown by a D'Angeline god to your bosom, and ask me for wisdom? As well ask the mute to advise the deaf. I'll get my medicine bag."
    Selig stared at me, frowning. I kept my countenance as open as I could, frankly as bewildered as he. All along, I had thought myself Ku-shiel's victim, marked out for the awful divinity of his love. It was something else, to think of myself as his weapon.
    The old priest fetched his medicines and mounted up behind Selig, spry as a boy. We rode that way back to the steading, through the spectacular forests. Lodur hummed to himself and sang a snatch of song, but no one else spoke. Selig's brow was dark with thought.
    At the hut, Lodur rapped three times on the threshold with his staff and gave a loud invocation before stepping inside. He seemed to bring a clean scent of snow and pine needles into the close, dim air of the hut. Joscelin, engaged in some Cassiline meditation, stared at the apparition.
    "Like a young Baldur, eh?" Lodur said casually to Selig, naming their dying-god, who is called the Beautiful. "Well, let's see 'em, boy." He squatted on his shanks next to Joscelin, examining the swollen red flesh of his hands and wrists. They were cracked